1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to toll payment devices and, more specifically, to a device able to be positioned within a vehicle and hidden from sight for automatically paying a toll as the vehicle passes through a toll booth, the device being able to record the transmitted signal transmitted by a presently in use toll payment tag and transmitting the signal to a toll collection device upon passing through a toll booth.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous types of toll booth pass cards have been provided in the prior art. An example of such a system is the E-Z Pass(copyright) System being used along the east coast of the United States. FIG. 1 illustrates a toll booth 10 utilizing such a system. As can be seen from this figure, a vehicle 12 is passing through the toll booth 10. The vehicle 12 has an E-Z Pass(copyright) tag 14 positioned in the windshield 15 of the vehicle 12. As the vehicle 12 passes through the toll booth 10, an antenna 16 is triggered to transmit a signal to the E-Z Pass(copyright) tag 14. The signal transmitted by the antenna 16 is indicated by the arrow labeled with the numeral 18. Upon receipt of the signal 18, the E-Z Pass(copyright) tag 14 transmits a signal including a tag identification number. The signal transmitted by the E-Z Pass(copyright) tag 14 is indicated by the arrow labeled with the numeral 20. The toll is charged to the account identified by the tag identification information and the tag identification information is recorded and a display 22 is controlled to indicate that the toll was paid upon receipt of the signal 20 by the antenna 16. The antenna 16 may also control a series of lights 17 for providing an additional indication as to payment of the toll. Certain problems with this system is that the tag is large and therefore may obstruct or distract the driver when positioned in the windshield 15. The tag is also unattractive and distracts from the style of the vehicle. Furthermore, the tag is positioned in a highly visible location and thus is readily seen by thieves who may look to steal the tag.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,001,696; 5,204,675; 5,552,789; 5,955,970; 5,969,641; 6,018,641; 6,019,285; 6,049,289 and 6,091,343 are also illustrative of such prior art. While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described.
An electronic antenna adapted for concealment in an automobile or similar vehicle is tuned by the RF tuning circuits of a conventional radio receiver. In the preferred embodiment, the antenna is designed for the AM and FM broadcast bands and includes a concealed metal plate which may be suitably mounted at a convenient location on the vehicle such as being embedded in the crash panel. RF signals are received by the metal plate pick-up which is connected to both low frequency and high frequency RF amplifiers which amplify them and, after suitable filtering, provide a highly selective output to the conventional radio receiver. This is due to the fact that when the conventional radio receiver is tuned to a station, it presents a very high impedance load at that frequency thereby causing the low frequency RF amplifier of the electronic antenna to amplify that frequency in preference to all others.
A System for collecting a toll for a vehicle, on which a vehicle number plate is mounted, is disclosed. In the system, a radio card as a storage medium is provided in the vehicle. The radio card generates a data signal representing identification data including a vehicle number data. A radio card access system receives the data signal transmitted from the radio card and processes the data signal to obtain the vehicle number data contained in the radio card. A TV camera picks up an image corresponding to a vehicle number from the number plate of the vehicle. The radio card access system generates vehicle number plate data from the image picked up by the TV camera. The radio card access system compares the vehicle number data and vehicle number plate data and verifies whether or not the two sets of data coincide, the toll of the vehicle is calculated in accordance with the identification data stored in the storage medium.
An integrated vehicle communications system for on-board use within a vehicle which may also communicate with external portions of the system which includes miniaturized, self-contained read/write transponders 20, 22, 30 of the type disclosed in Schuermann U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,774, for providing functions within the vehicle, e.g., for sensing conditions and parameters. The on-board interrogation unit 10 interrogates and receives signals by RF communication provided by on-board antennas 14, 26, 28 between the interrogation unit and respective transponders for read/write responder operation. The processor 33 with display device 34a and/or control circuits 34b carries out on-board functions in response to such interrogation. A transponder 22 may serve as a vehicle operator key by which the system may verify key code, unlock the vehicle doors, as well as select and perform initialization functions including ignition, seat and seat belt adjustment, mirror positioning, and antitheft functions before vehicle entry by the operator. A transponder 30 may access external control data for premises or toll access, and may provide toll or credit or service transactions, as for authorization or verification or toll charge debiting purposes. The system may include also IR links.
In a toll gate system in which the toll is automatically and electronically collected through wireless communication between an on-board electronic device and a stationary electronic device installed at the toll gate, illegitimate or fraudulent actions committed in the system are detected by the on-board device. When such actions are detected, a communication function of the on-board device is made inoperative. After disposing the illegitimate actions properly, the communication function of the on-board device is restored so that the on-board device can be used again thereafter. The illegitimate action such as opening the on-board device for changing or reading the data contained therein can be detected by sensing removal of screws fastening a circuit board to a case of the on-boar device.
A plurality of antennas receives radio wave transmitted from a vehicle which comes in a toll collection area. Each antenna has at least three antenna elements, and the antennas are disposed in the horizontal direction and vertical direction. The signal analyzer analyzes the ID signal included in the received radio wave to identify the vehicle. The direction detector measures the direction of arrival (DOA) of radio wave received by two antennas selected by the antenna selector by way of two-dimensional interferometry principle in terms of the directional angle and depression angle. The location detector calculates the location of the vehicle in the horizontal direction and the height in the vertical direction of the vehicle as a location information based on the DOA of the radio wave measured by the direction detector. The vehicle tracking unit generates the locus data of the vehicle based on the location information calculated by the location detector and the information for identifying the vehicle analyzed by the signal analyzer. On the other hand, the video camera takes a picture of the vehicle which comes in the toll collection area to obtain the picture data. The data correlation unit judges whether the vehicle is a violator vehicle by correlating the picture data and locus data. The controller registers the locus data and picture data of the vehicle if the vehicle is a violator vehicle. On the other hand, the controller collects a prescribed toll from the vehicle if the vehicle is not a violator vehicle.
A radio IC card system includes an IC and a toll collector. When an automobile with the IC card passes by a tollgate, the toll collector installed in the tollgate transmits a first radio signal which is spread modulated using a pseudorandom noise (PN) code from an antenna. The first radio signal is received by the antenna of the IC card and is transmitted to a surface acoustic wave (SAW) correlator. The SAW correlator extracts a PN code included in the received signal, and outputs a peak signal. An accumulation circuit accumulates the peak signal. A threshold discharger is activated to switch on a relay switch when the output voltage of the accumulation circuit exceeds a constant value. Thereby, the voltage of a battery is supplied to a data communication unit. Then, the identification code of the IC and a record of tollgates by which card the automobile has passed are transmitted via radio signal to the toll collector.
An automatic toll charging system communicates by radio between roadside units disposed on each gate of a toll road and a vehicle-mounted unit mounted in a vehicle, and automatically charges a toll in a range from an entrance gate to an exit gate. In this system, an IC card is inserted in the vehicle-mounted unit,and payment information recorded in the IC card and entrance information received from a roadside unit, disposed at the entrance gate are recorded in the information recording part of the vehicle-mounted unit. In addition, the entrance information recorded in the information recording part is transmitted to the roadside unit disposed at the exit gate, and a toll payment process is executed. The entrance information is recorded in the IC card as a backup so the toll payment process can be executed even if a function of the vehicle-mounted unit is performed improperly.
A remote control system for opening and closing a barrier, such as a garage door, includes an RF receiver and a plurality of RF transmitters. The transmitters and receiver include circuitry programmed to provide transmission of encrypted code signals each time the transmitters are used and employing a code hopping method which prevents unauthorized signal interception or code xe2x80x9cgrabbingxe2x80x9d. The system is operated in a code learning mode for the receiver by momentarily actuating a receiver learn mode button for receiving each transmitter identification code and a secret decryption key for that transmitter with the system automatically returning to the operate mode. Each transmitter identification and secret key code signal is automatically and randomly stored in an available and unused memory in the receiver circuitry. A multibit hopping code is transmitted from each transmitter to the receiver with each transmitter operation in the operate mode of the system and the hopping code changes with each transmission to prevent theft or code grabbing and resultant unauthorized operation of the system.
A trainable transmitter is described that is capable of learning and replicating both AM and FM signals. The trainable transmitter also has the capacity to learn and replicate RF signals in both the 27 MHz to 40 MHz and the 250 MHz to 450 MHz frequency bands commonly used in European garage door openers. The trainable transmitter allows an individual to input an identification of the country in which the trainable transmitter will be operated such that the trainable transmitter may then transmit the learned signals at the maximum level permitted for the identified county.
The present invention relates generally to toll payment devices and, more specifically, to a device able to be positioned within a vehicle and hidden from sight for automatically paying a toll as the vehicle passes through a toll booth, the device being able to record the transmitted signal transmitted by a presently in use toll payment tag and transmitting the signal to a toll collection device upon passing through a toll booth.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device that will overcome the shortcomings of prior art devices.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device which is able to be positioned within a vehicle and hidden from sight so as not to obstruct the view of the driver or be readily visible to thieves.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device including a switch positioned so as not to obstruct the movement or vision of the driver for reading the signal from a toll payment tag.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device wherein the switch includes a visual indicator for informing the user when the signal from the toll payment tag has been recorded.
A yet further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device which is integrally connected within a vehicle and thus cannot be stolen.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device positioned within a specially designed compartment or within the rear view mirror of the vehicle.
An even further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device wherein the switch is located on the dashboard or rearview mirror.
A yet further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device which allows the toll payment tag to be removed a window of the vehicle and thus improves the vision of the driver and removing an unattractive tag from view.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device which allows use of a single toll payment tag in numerous vehicles without the need for transferring the toll payment tag between the vehicles.
An even further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device which can be preprogrammed with a user""s toll payment tag information by a vehicle dealer prior to the user picking up the vehicle.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toll tag recording device that simplifies use of presently and widely accepted toll payment tags.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a toll payment device that utilizes and improves present toll payment systems by preventing theft of toll payment tags and removes the need to position unattractive toll payment tags on a window of the vehicle.
Additional objects of the present invention will appear as the description proceeds.
A device for automatically paying a toll for a vehicle passing through a toll booth is disclosed by the present invention. The toll payment device includes a transmitting device and a switch. The transmitting device includes a receiver for receiving a signal from an antenna at the toll booth; a memory unit for storing identification information associated with the device; and a transmitter connected to both the receiver and memory unit for transmitting a signal including the stored identification information to the antenna upon receipt of the signal and allowing the antenna to charge an account associated with the device. The switch selectively disconnects the memory unit from the transmitter thereby preventing transmission of the identification information to the antenna and charging of the account associated with the device. The switch includes a first switch positioned adjacent a driver seat of the vehicle and a second normally closed switch connected between the memory unit and transmitter, wherein activation of the first switch toggles the second switch into an open position thereby disconnecting the memory unit and transmitter. The switch also includes a visual indicator for informing the user when the signal transmitted by the user""s has been recorded by the device. The visual indicator can also provide an indication when the user""s account is overdrawn and needs to be replenished. The transmitting device is preferably positioned in a hidden location such as under a hood of the vehicle, within a compartment inside the vehicle or within a rear view mirror of the vehicle.
To the accomplishment of the above and related objects, this invention may be embodied in the form illustrated in the accompanying drawings, attention being called to the fact, however, that the drawings are illustrative only, and that changes may be made in the specific construction illustrated and described within the scope of the appended claims.